She’d circled around Trent and Cujo for days, dodging Cujo’s suggestion of going to see a lawyer because admitting to someone else that she killed a person was a step she wasn’t ready for.
There was one lie she could stop perpetuating though, and to ease her conscience she made a decision to solve it right now. “Can I talk to you guys for a minute?”
“Sure, Pix,” Trent said, slinging his jacket over the desk. “What’s up?”
Pixie took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be a tattoo artist. I’m sorry. I really don’t want to hurt your feelings after you’ve all tried so hard, but I don’t think—”
“We figured,” Cujo said, resting both hands on the counter. “We’d even said we’d talk to you about it after all this other stuff was over.”
“You did?” Pixie’s eyes pricked with tears born of relief.
“Yeah,” Trent said. “Your heart needs to be in tattooing. And yours isn’t.”
“But you guys wanted me to do it, and I didn’t want to let you down. I was useless at it.”
“Is that what you thought?” Cujo asked. “Because there was never any expectation on our part that you’d want to. We offered to teach you if you wanted to learn, and you said you did.”
“I wanted to be great at it,” she said with a sad shake of her head. “Like you guys are.”
“Listen,” Trent said, reaching across the counter to take her hand. “We’ll be here for you. No matter what you want to do with the rest of your life, or what you did before you came here, we aren’t going anywhere. Who you are right now is perfect, Pix. Don’t try to be something you’re not for us, or for any other asshole.”
“He’s not an asshole,” she said, knowing exactly whom Trent was referring to.
“He is, and I’m gonna tell him when I see him tomorrow.”
“Please don’t say—”
“He’s an asshole,” Cujo grumbled. “He needs to hear it.”
“There are days,” she said with a half smile, “when I wish you guys weren’t quite so brotherly.”
“Yeah, well. Tough luck on that one,” Trent said, pulling her into his arms for a hug.
But today his arms weren’t enough.
And that made her heart bleed a little more.
*
Dred yawned sleepily in the make-up chair. The triple-espresso shot in his coffee was not having the desired effect. He could do without a day of filming, because he really wasn’t in the mood to make nice with contestants or face Trent. It wasn’t that he was scared of having the conversation with him—it was a given it was going to happen, so there was no point dodging it. What scared him more was that Trent was going to be right about him. That he was a fuck-up. Because that was the conclusion Dred had come to in the small hours of the morning. And he needed to make things right with Pixie, or at least listen to her and figure out if he could deal with what she had to say.
The make-up lady, obviously sensing his lethargy, didn’t make her usual inane small talk as she applied crap to his face. He reached for his coffee and took another large gulp.
In the four days since the award show, his world had been knocked off its axis. A perfect little seven-week-old baby now lived in his house. There was no way he was ever going to be able to repay Maisey and Ellen for all their help. Maisey had guided him through the process of dealing with social services, and seeing as there was no one to legally contest his right to keep her with him, it had all gone smoothly. When he’d finally held his daughter in his arms, he cried unashamedly. And right there he’d made her a promise. He’d be there for her for the rest of her life. There was nothing or no one who could convince him to give her up, or give up on her. Ever. All thoughts of her being better off with someone else were long gone, already replaced with four days’ worth of memories. Of Nikan being puked on. Of Jordan helping him get Petal out of the onesie she’d crapped all over volcano-style. Who knew her little body was capable of storing that much shit?
One afternoon, after a very cranky morning, he’d sat with Petal cradled against his naked chest. He’d read somewhere—likely in one of the thousand books on caring for babies that Lennon had bought—that skin-on-skin time was a good thing. He feared for his life if the diaper didn’t hold because her poops were toxic, but she slept soundly and her rhythmic breathing soothed him.